Interesting discovery

I know using guitar heads for bass is nothing new, and it's been discussed in these forums in the past, but I thought I'd share my story.

The singer in my band, who also plays guitar picked up a Laney Linebacker 100w reverb head, and Laney 412 cab. He really only wanted the cab, to play with his Marshall head, but the Laney head was a throw-in when he bought it.

For months, this Laney head has sat on a shelf in our rehearsal space, having never been played once.

For fun, I grabbed it, and put it on top of my Ampeg 810av cab, plugged it in and did a bit of tweaking.

To my surprise, it sounded awesome. It was punchy, beefy and I could get a great clean sound, while adding as much dirt as I could handle.

Volume wise, it held up with the band well. We play hard rock / metal, and it was good. There would be a concern about headroom if I were playing a larger venue with no p.a. support, but that really doesn't happen.

Although, it wont replace my Ampeg head, I may give this thing a shot at my next gig.

two fingersOpinionated blowhard. But not mad about it.Gold Supporting Member

If it sounds good, it sounds good. There is WAY too much "conventional wisdom" in the world of music. "You can't use that" or "There's no way that could ever sound like anything but crap". Whatever. Do what makes you grin man!

Along the same line, I bought a Peavey ValveKing 100 head during the Musician's Friend closeout a couple weeks ago. At $299 for a 100w 4x6L6 head, I couldn't resist. Nice bassy clean channel. Once I figured out that flat was about 1-10-1 on the passive tone controls, it wasn't hard to dial in a usable tone. Haven't gigged it yet, but it easily stood up to our 5-piece blues band during rehearsal. I'm starting to play with using a Paradriver DI in the effects return, mostly for its sweepable mids.

I've used one of those Laney heads, I think the bass version though, for a while before, grabbed because it was so cheap and ended up lending it a bunch, decent sound and most people kid themselves over how much power they need. It had one marshall knob on it, and I sold it to some crusty guy. earlier in the year, I spotted it still gigging at a show I was playing, and I don't imagine it was babied in the meantime.

Good point. If I were to unexpectedly discover my wife in bed with the mailman.........

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... then you'd use your two fingers (and some strong language).
Badum tss!

I actually am no stranger to guitar gear with bass. I practice through a 30w guitar combo at low volume, not a bad sound really. Pushing the amp to 8 gets an overdriven sound that I really like! But it scares me. Don't want to break it.